10th Century Fantastic Beasts
by Ken Hazlett and Nat Lawson
Costume Description: Original design of the Hogwarts Founders from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Bio: We are cosplayers from Southern California who occasionally combine our cosplaying with our other pastime- surfing.
The Case of the Missing Founder (CLOSED)
Abstract: Circa 1010 common era (CE), Salazar Slytherin, learned magicker, scholar, world traveler, and basilisk breeder, disappeared. All wizarding histories, including the penultimate source on Hogwarts, Hogwarts, A History (Bagshot, 1905), note that Slytherin disagreed with the other three Founders on the teaching of magic to the Muggle-born, and thus, left Hogwarts, angry and disillusioned. Through dogged research and exhaustive detective work, the author of this paper reveals the true fate of Salazar Slytherin, and surprisingly, the fate of Rowen Ravenclaw, utilizing the early enchanted and startlingly lifelike paintings of Grimhilde of Bingen and Hildegard of Bingen, as well as accounts from Slytherin’s own newly discovered journal for Year 1032, 33, revealing the magicker as an avid naturalist of Fantastic Beasts, who extensively traveled the various routes of the Silk Road with Rowen Ravenclaw, after Ravenclaw’s ‘death’. Additionally, this article presents new evidence regarding a second Ravenclaw diadem, created after the infamous theft of the original artefact.
Excerpt from Section 1.3 History of the Artists:
Note: Artist history is primarily sourced from Vasari, 1569, unless otherwise noted.
Grimhilde of Bingen (b. 964 d. 1138), a most misunderstood woman of her time, largely due to an ungrateful stepdaughter widely known primarily for her snow white skin, was, in actuality, a writer, composer, mystic, and artist of the 10th century. Forced to leave her homeland, in the Rhine, due to the aforementioned stepdaughter and an unfortunate incident involving a huntsman and several angry miners, Grimhilde settled in the region of what is now Cornwall in England. Her many interests and skills led her to the creation of an enchanted paintbrush, which created paintings, so lifelike, they are nearly indistinguishable from the photographs of today.
Although Grimhilde’s paintings and writings became well known in the Wizarding world, her scholarly pursuits were not her only passion and she married and bore one daughter, also an artist, composer, and mystic. Grimhilde’s granddaughter, however, was born a Squib, which may have been what drove her to successes even beyond her mother and grandmother. Hildegard of Bingen (b. 1098 d. 1179) returned to her grandmother’s homeland as a young adult and became a German Benedictine abbess, a writer, a composer, a philosopher, a mystic, a visionary, a polymath, an artist, and is considered among Wizards and Muggles alike, to be the founder of scientific natural history in the Germanic region.
Among their many accomplishments, Grimhilde and Hildegard painted several important wizarding figures of their day, most notably, Salazar Slytherin and Rowen Ravenclaw. Grimhilde completed a series of paintings of the pair between 1026 and 1028. Hildegard, who inherited the enchanted brush, also painted Slytherin and Ravenclaw, circa 1132. These paintings, which show the two Founders, reunited, after Slytherin’s disappearance and Ravenclaw’s death as the witch, Rowena Ravenclaw, are masterfully created and provide a number of interesting facts regarding Slytherin’s mysterious disappearance from the school and Ravenclaw’s supposed death of a broken heart. The series of paintings of Slytherin and Ravenclaw by the two artists is known in the Wizarding art world as the dual Bingen series.
Excerpt from 2.1 Archival Research:
[…] No one in the Kavalier family possessed an ounce of magic any longer and thus, no one over the ages was able to decipher the ancient text, largely written in a combination of Middle Irish, Old Norse, Latin, and a code, possibly based on spoken Parseltongue. The journal, a simple leather book labeled “MXXXII, MXXXIII, A.D.”, containing sketches of strange beasts, was an unreadable text among nearly two dozen aged tomes, and almost universally ignored by the family over time. Indeed, until the late 1980s, when Mr. Clay Kavalier, a graphic novel artist, discovered the sketches of the Fantastic Beasts in the journal and used them as an inspiration for his drawings, the book was almost never opened. Mr. Kavalier’s highly accurate depictions of various Fantastic Beasts, found in a Muggle ‘comic book’, led the author of this article to the Slytherin journal, carefully stored and preserved by the Kavalier family, now, of Orange, California, USA. The authenticity of the journal was verified by the Historical Records Department, Ministry of Magic, in 2020.
[…] The depiction of the diadem in the dual Bingen series has long puzzled wizarding scholars, as it is widely known and accepted that Ravenclaw’s diadem was stolen by Helena Ravenclaw and hidden, only surfacing during the reign of He Who Must Not Be Named in the modern era. The original diadem possessed an oval blue jewel and “was said to grant wisdom to the wearer” (Bagshot, 1905). A description of the dual Bingen series diadem is included in Section 3.1; it is noted here, however, that the two artefacts are different. Considering the possibility that Ravenclaw crafted a second diadem, the author of this article researched Wizarding metalworkers of the 10th century, finally discovering among the preserved papers of Lillith Helmschmied, the most famous female Wizarding metalworker of the 10th and 11th centuries, a sketch of the diadem depicted in the dual Bingen series. Unfortunately, Helmschmied does not indicate if the new diadem possessed the same abilities as the original. If, as many scholars opine, Ravenclaw enchanted the jewel herself (Bagshot, 1905), it seems likely that the second jewel was also enchanted.
Excerpt from 3.1 Description of the Garb:
The dual Bingen series may be the most important depiction of any of the Founders completed to date. Not only is the garb consistent with 10th century fashions, and thus, likely representing one of the more accurate portrayals of the Founders, there are accents to the garb which offer insight into the Founders themselves. The paintings in the series were created nearly 100 years apart. Neither Founder appears to have aged between the sessions and both are garbed identically in all paintings in the dual series. There is agreement among experts that Hildegard likely created her paintings from sketches completed by Grimhilde.
Salazar Slytherin left Viking occupied lands, in what is now Ireland, as a young adult, and the garb the Founder wears in the paintings reflects the Founder’s roots in Viking Age Ireland. Salazar is painted wearing a green dress over a léine; the dress is heavily embroidered with Fantastic Beasts, including a zouwu, a demiguise (both visible and invisible), a phoenix, a unicorn, a manticore, an occamy, and a basilisk, all done in the style of the Book of Kells. One of the embroidery designs shows a kelpie, which are known to live in Black Lake, at Hogwarts. Snakes are embroidered over a border of Celtic knot work that runs along the base of the dress. The top of the dress and the top of the léine are both decorated with lace that incorporates Book of Kells style snakes. Salazar also wears a green coat, adorned with still more snakes. The paintings indicate that the Founder preferred fancy Wizarding fabrics and possessed an almost excessive flair. The coat is pinned with metal brooches to show off the dress embroidery and like many items made at the time, the base of the coat is lined with fur. From the painting, it is not possible to definitively ascertain the type of fur, but magi-biologists generally agree that it is likely Bodmin Moorcat (Challenger, 1899, Mirza et al., 2018).
Rowen Ravenclaw, who originated from the Kingdom of Alba (now, approximately the lowlands of Scotland), is painted in traditional Anglo-Saxon garb. Like Salazar, Rowen also wears fancy wizarding fabric unavailable to the Muggles of the time. Celtic style ravens are embroidered on the sleeves and around the keyhole opening of the long tunica. Chain embroidery winds around the ravens. Celtic knot work is embroidered along the base of the tunic. Consistent with Anglo-Saxon fashions, Ravenclaw is wearing short pants tucked into high socks that are secured with ties. Ravenclaw’s simple silver band diadem is completely consistent with Muggle styles of the day and contains the Celtic phrase, “Cíall gan chiomhsa • Maoin mór duini”, in a version of Gaelic spoken in Alba. The phrase approximates “Wit without limit: great treasure of Men”. According to Helmschmied, the band is made of silver and the words are stamped into the band. The jewel is noted as a sapphire and it is also set in silver. Rowen’s rich cloak is decorated around the base with silver trim and it is worn draped, similar to a Roman toga. Generally, Rowen’s garb is less decorated than Salazar’s garb. It is thought among some scholars that the Founder of the Ravenclaw House was more reserved than his Slytherin counterpart. The dual Bingen series would counter this idea.
Excerpt from 3.2 Description of the Fantastic Beasts
There are few records regarding the Fantastic Beasts depicted in the paintings, which include an occamy and a basilisk. Salazar’s journal records the names of both beasts who appear in the dual Bingen series and notes that the basilisk was one of three successful hatchings. The occamy is called Ocarina and the basilisk is King George. The occamy could be of any age, as occamy will grow or shrink to whatever size to occupy space, an ability they possess immediately after hatching. The basilisk is clearly a youngster, as it is small and still has wings, as compared to the centuries old and massively huge wingless basilisk found in the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts in 1992. Salazar’s journal does not include any dates for the hatchings and says nothing about the other two successful hatchings. The journal also does not offer any information regarding how Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Grimhilde of Bingen all lived beyond the sketching and painting sessions involving the basilisk. As breeding of basilisks is currently illegal and has been illegal for centuries, very little is known about them. Magi-biologists generally agree that the most likely scenario is that the beast had either not yet developed any of the paralyzing or killing abilities possessed by the Chamber of Secrets basilisk or he was able to control his abilities (Verne, 1863, Challenger, 1891). Opinion is split regarding whether the basilisk himself decided against rampaging during the sessions or whether Salazar was able to train the beast (Mirza, 2020).
Excerpt from Appendix 2, The Bingen Wizarding Collection
[…] and in 1947, Ginger Bingen, used the ragged and worn set of paintbrushes to create her own series of Wizard paintings of Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Ginger Bingen’s paintings incorporate the last of her many times removed Great Aunt Grimhilde’s sketches and notes of her sessions with the two Founders. Experts do not agree on whether the paintings accurately reflect the two Founders, as the paintings have only recently been made public. For one, many say, the Founders are speaking modern English. Although the paintings were rumored to exist, the Bingen Wizarding collection remained in private hands until 2017. That year, the four paintings below were stolen from the estate of the last Bingen by a self-styled modern-day Robin Hood and hung in the toilet of Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (well known even among Muggles as the oldest pub in England), when the pub was closed for the night. As there were no heirs to the estate and no will, and no one really owned the paintings or knew what to do with them, they were left in place at the pub and secured with heavy charms and curses.
